FBefore I turned 28, Ive day, I cut my long hair into a short dark bob. It was a year of one year: A young member of the family suddenly died. The boyfriend with whom I had married would have disappointed me. Then my body left me in the hospital for a week, lost a fallopian tube, and later gained his strength from emergency surgery for several months. I felt that I changed-and there was only one place I wanted to remember metamorphosis: behind the curtain of an old-fashioned photo booth. Therefore, I sat on the Cracky Stool and smiled, all of this survived.
In 1925, a photo booth in the world was launched in the world for the first time by the Russian Jewish immigrant Anatol Josepho on the streets of New York. The invention, which increased to 100 this year, was immediately successful. Nevertheless, despite its popularity and Quality of grand filmAnalog booths were replaced by digital options in the late 80s and gradually disappeared completely. It is only through Dedication of medium fans That they have begun to creep on the streets of cities including London, Paris, Barcelona and Florence in the last 10 years – for the pleasure of Millennials and General Z, who are hugging the most antiquities.
Twenty -six -year -old Ella Hodson was living in Montmartre, Paris when he fell in love with the photo booth. Ruy des Trois-Frees had one near her flat and every time she was a visitor or hung out with her friends in the city, she would pull the curtain back and climbed inside. Unlike an edited selfie or filtered Instagram post, he realized that Snapshot authentically occupied him and his friends that day, because they were that day, without curations or hundreds. “It was a very good way to create a memory,” she says. “It was always dead on that road. Nobody went there too. Every time I went back, it was one. Huge queue out,
A century ago, the photo booth gave everyone a chance to pose for the first time without the attentive eye of a photographer. People were very excited about the idea of being independent for the curator Taus Dahmani of the photographers gallery. , strike a pose! 100 years of photobuoth The exhibition tells me. “That’s why, soon after the launch of Anatol Josepho PhotometanHe added the curtain – which makes privacy. Behind the drawn cloth, Quir couples were free to kiss in America. Civil Rights of 1964 ActPhoto booths never apply separation. “It was actually a democratic invention,” says Daimani.
The 33-year-old writer Kirsty McKenzie, who lives in Barcelona, fell to the attraction of the photo booth after seeing pictures of his grandparents, when he was young. “It sounds quite raw,” she says. “It’s something sweet about inserting the coin, waiting for a little, stimulation of taking out your photos. This delayed satisfaction.” When McKenzie visited Florence (one of) Most Tiktok viral booth Via Santa is on Monaka) He suggested to his parents and brother that they follow the footsteps of his grandparents: “They all used to laugh at me and said ‘Don’t you have a phone’. [But I] Drags them across the city to find one. Me and my mother came in. This is the right way to catch a moment. This is clear. release. ,
Like many of the women I talk to, McCenzie has posted a photo booth many times, especially in San Sebastian when she is traveling there alone. “This is the opposite of sending a postcard. It’s just something for me to respect that moment,” she reflects. Dahamani noted that young generations may prefer a stranger in a photo booth when asked to take their photo on leave, because “a kind of photo booth was the ancestor of selfie”. She says: “What is happening is the entire agency on it, but there is also a feeling of losing control – you can be surprised by flash, a blot. It’s exciting.”
Many youth also use photo booths to mark the events of big life. Thirty -year -old Annabel Nugant pulled her lover of 10 years inside an old school photo booth, when she proposed her in Sardinia in 2023. The pictures show them smiling, kisses, cheeks the cheek. “The declaration of engagement may be quite pressure,” Nagent reflects. “How do you choose which is to post the right picture?! It took some of the option away. It was simple. I love pictures. It just takes me back so incredibly happy and back to love, which I am still!”
Like me, 30 -year -old Sawyer Wilson has used a photo booth to mark the passage of time. She prefers her immedia, her authenticity and adventure from experience. Last year, he was marched by a friend on a machine in Barcelona, who wanted him to celebrate his birthday. “I felt it was very thoughtful and sweet and now I look back on that strip of pictures and as I am, ‘Oh, this is 2024” she says about the images that see her smiling and push her tongue on the lens “that photo strip really looks special,” She says.’ I was a very good day with her friend.
Hodson accidentally took the catalog a step forward last year when she alone visited Berlin and realizing that she was accidentally posing in a booth that she had already visited years ago. In the first strip from 2018, long dirty hair falls on her shoulders, a white T-shirt chimes over her collarbones. Images are black and white – but you can tell that it is summer. From the end of 2024 to another, he has a bundle in a dark roll-neck jumper, hairs are cropped, somehow in his body more relaxed. She says, “It was a full cycle of six years different.” “It seems to me that I have become too big – but the person I was still inside me when I was young.”
A photo used to be cheaper to go to the booth. We are talking about 25 cents (19 pens) when the invention was first in the 1920s. Cut in 2025, and an analog film machine in London will set you back to £ 7. A huge jump. Nevertheless, at a time when the cost of living is crippling, the popularity of photo booths is still increasing between cash-stapped genes and milleniels. “Even during the Great Depression in the US, people were still going to the photo booth,” says Damani. “It is like a history of commerce and capital. Every time the world’s economy has collapsed, the photo booth economy increases. It goes against all beliefs.”
When life is depressed or uncertain, we need to feel love. This, of course, when we crave the most craving and happiness. With photo booths, their ancient attractions, curtain’s privacy and non-judicial gaze, give us an opportunity to experience happiness for only a few pounds. Looking at the images included in the exhibition of Dahamani, which tracks back until 1927, impressing to see that a century ago, those living their lives were treated like us. Through the upheaval and difficulty, people are still only people. We still need to kiss, and smile, and wear a strange hat.
strike a pose! 100 years of photobuoth The photographers are in the gallery from 10 October to 22 February.